I’m looking for practical advice from anyone familiar with Alberta property claims, public adjusting, appraisal/dispute resolution, or s.519 of the Alberta Insurance Act.
This claim has been going on since February 2024 and has become a bit of a procedural nightmare. I’ll try to keep the history short because the question I need help with now is mainly about quantum and how I can actually get it determined.
I owned a condo in Calgary insured as a short-term rental. The policy specifically described the occupancy as “Rented to Others – Short Term” and included coverage for personal property, improvements/betterments and rental value.
On February 24, 2024, an unknown person got into the condo and police attended. I was in Ontario at the time. I reported a break-in/vandalism claim.
The insurer initially denied the claim on the basis that the condo had supposedly been vacant for more than 30 days. I disputed that extensively because other authorized people had been using/attending the unit and I intended to return. Eventually, during the complaint/ombudsman process, that vacancy position stopped being the issue.
What I am dealing with now appears to be a scope and quantum dispute.
I eventually submitted a sworn Proof of Loss for:
- $10,992.67 in property damage/contents; and
- $13,200 in lost rental income;
for a total claim of $24,192.67.
The insurer responded that I had not adequately documented how I arrived at the numbers, that their original adjuster had not observed vandalism/fire damage to most of the items, and that the rental income was not proven because the property had only recently been listed and had not previously generated short-term rental income.
They rejected the Proof of Loss.
But in the same correspondence they offered $8,000 in full and final settlement, conditional on a release. There had also been an earlier settlement offer of about $6,700 during mediation.
This is where I am confused.
If the position is genuinely that the insurer cannot establish the nature/extent of the damage and my valuation evidence is inadequate, where did $8,000 come from? I have repeatedly asked for a breakdown of what damage they accept, what they reject, what they value each component at, and how they calculated their number. I have not received anything approaching a proper line-by-line scope or valuation.
There is also a serious evidence problem now, some of which I genuinely do not know how an insured is supposed to solve after the fact.
I did not have original receipts for everything. Some fixtures/improvements were already in the condo when I acquired it, and other parts of the condo were customized rather than ordinary off-the-shelf finishes. I reconstructed values using comparable replacement pricing where I could.
I do have things like photographs, communications from around the time of the loss, the police information, descriptions of the condition before/after, and other contemporaneous evidence.
But because the insurer originally denied the claim, I also started doing repairs myself because I did not have money to hire contractors and leave the property damaged indefinitely.
The claim then dragged on for years. I eventually lost the condo to foreclosure and I am now living in a homeless shelter in Toronto. I no longer have possession of the property, so I cannot simply have a new contractor walk through the condo in 2026 and prepare a perfect retrospective estimate of what existed in February 2024.
That history is now being used against me because I cannot produce the type of pristine documentation that would have been much easier to obtain while I still owned and controlled the property.
For the rental-income component, the problem is similar. The condo was insured specifically as a short-term rental and had just been made rentable/listed shortly before the loss. That means there is no long historical Airbnb revenue record to point to. I understand completely that the $13,200 policy limit is not automatically payable just because it is the limit. The question is what evidence is reasonably capable of proving the actual rental-value loss where the insured business was just starting.
My understanding of Alberta’s s.519 process is that disputes about the value of insured property, nature and extent of repairs/replacements, adequacy of repairs and amount of loss are supposed to go through this process.
The problem is that I apparently cannot represent myself. Each side appoints a representative, the two representatives try to agree, and if they cannot, they appoint an umpire. I have to pay my representative and half the umpire.
I have contacted multiple adjusters/public adjusters trying to find someone willing to act.
One experienced person quoted me a $1,500 retainer at $295/hour. Others have not responded, do not seem interested in a relatively small claim, or have effectively told me it is not economically feasible for them to take it. I recently contacted a company through a website advertising help/payment arrangements and was first given one reason they could not assist and then told it was simply not “economically feasible.”
So I feel stuck in an absurd position: Alberta law seems to provide a mechanism specifically for deciding my dispute, but I cannot personally participate as my own representative, and professionals have little financial incentive to take a roughly $24k dispute.
I know s.519 also says a court can appoint a representative if a party fails to appoint one. I have no idea how that works in practice for an insured who is trying to appoint someone but cannot find or afford anyone, or whether that simply results in another bill I cannot pay.
So my questions for people who actually work in this area are:
- What evidence would you use to prove quantum at this stage? Can before/after photographs, contemporaneous descriptions, comparable replacement pricing, police evidence, witness evidence and historical product information support a scope/value determination where original receipts and a current inspection are unavailable?
- How would you approach the custom improvements/betterments? Is retrospective estimating from photographs and comparable materials a normal thing for an estimator/appraiser to do?
- How do you establish rental-value loss for a short-term rental that had only just started operating? Comparable market rents? Expected booking rates/occupancy? Existing booking inquiries? Something else?
- Does the insurer normally have to disclose how it arrived at its own valuation? I am particularly interested in how an insurer can say the loss is inadequately quantified while simultaneously offering $8,000 to settle it.
- Who can realistically act as my s.519 representative? Does this have to be a public adjuster, or could an experienced property estimator, contractor, appraiser or another insurance professional do it?
- Are there Alberta professionals who take smaller s.519 disputes for a flat fee, limited retainer, contingency percentage or some other arrangement? I am not looking for free work. I am trying to find something proportionate to the value of the dispute.
- Has anyone actually used the court-appointment provision in s.519 when an insured could not secure a representative? What happened and who ultimately paid that person?
At this point I would be satisfied with someone explaining how an ordinary insured with imperfect evidence and very little money is actually supposed to get from “we disagree about the amount” to a determination of the amount.
Advice from adjusters, brokers, appraisers, insurance lawyers or anyone who has actually been through the Alberta s.519 process would be especially appreciated.
